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User blog:Molokaicreeper/Merging
Merging? What is this all about, I'm confused... Don't worry. The merge is just as confusing to us! But I will try to explain about Wikia wikis merging and why this wasn't done earlier. I hope you're ready for a long explanation! What was Marapedia First let's go back to the basics. Marapedia was created by User:RexAndAbby. (He or She) may have been a user who, like me, loves Marapets and wanted to help the world find information about their favorite game. I DO know for sure, that RexAndAbby intended it to be the best Marapets encyclopedia in the internet. However how do you begin such a big project without any help? This is the fate that so many people find, when trying to make a wiki. A wiki is not just any ordinary website. A wiki is usually destined to be full of as much information as possible about a subject. The information is usually provided by users, just like you and I; and collectively the project is supposed to grow. The original founder was alone, and eventually found himself/herself, with too much work ahead of them. Sadly, the person left to never return. Around a year later, another person got interested in adopting the wiki which was at the time, a small project. There were a few articles (perhaps less than ten) and the new admin/bureaucrat managed to bring those to 26! Twenty Six Articles: Nice! Around July 2009, Yahoo/Geocities announced the closure of their free website service, to occur by October 26th 2009. Me, the owner of the Maradan Chronicles there, had considered abandoning the site due to the loss of a pet. That's quite a long story on its own, but to make it short, it was taken away by SpyderDawg. Eventually, it was returned by another admin, when it was proven the pet shouldn't have been taken away from me in the first place! But anyway, I wasn't about to lose all the sleepless nights working in my beloved Marapets fan site. I had recently discovered Wikianswers and had been chosen editor of the month there, started Spanish Wikianswers shortly after; then began considering moving my site to Wikia. I don't quite remember if I tried for Marapets, but even if I did, it was probably denied because it was in use. So, the Maradan Chronicles at Wikia, was born as soon as I felt confident. Confident... What do you mean: Confident? Eh, he he, well I was confident when I created the Maradan Chronicles wiki... but soon noticed that the html code I was familiar with, wasn't working for me! The tables were just not showing right, the text couldn't be turned to another color without some complicated code, and gosh, did I mention the inconveniences in mediawiki? Yes, for example if you put your text immediately under the equal signs when you create a headline " " the text might join the one on top, so instead of a headline you'd end up with a line of a bunch of un-stylish equal signs! Well, I didn't know that until later, and the fact that I didn't know what the heck I was doing made it worse. I left the wiki, for about 2 months... until around the beginning of October. If I didn't move quick enough, I wasn't going to be able to move the content before it was taken offline, from Geocities. Other problems in mediawiki make the text under a "dev" connect with the code above; making the table look like a disaster. I was really frustrated and my wiki wasn't anywhere close to what my Geocities site was! During this time I would visit Marapedia, and help out in what I could, I created a few articles that were needed, but the new admin/bureaucrat was still active and had adopted the wiki (back in February 2009). It was fairly recent and I thought he/she had the situation under control, but eventually (a few months later) he/she left and made another user account. Fortunately, the user also moved admin/bureaucracy to the new username. It was in May 2010 when the last edit was made by the admin/bureaucrat a little more than a year after he/she adopted the wiki in 2009. The edit was to his/her own userpage letting everyone know that he/she had moved to a new username. But in Wikia, it is required that a person who is interested in adopting a wiki, waits a while after the last edit of the last admin in the wiki. It can generally take somewhere from 6 weeks, to six months, to finally render the wiki "abandoned". I had edited a few more articles and some unregistered contributors were actively creating articles but I still wasn't aware of the departure of the last admin/bureaucrat. Busy Time 2010 was a very busy year, not only was I working in a lot of wikis simultaneously; but I also had to tend to real life issues. It wasn't long before talk about a new Wikia "skin" filled the Community Central forums with angry users complaining about it and threatening to leave Wikia. The definite change was to occur in November 3rd, 2010, and Monaco skin would be, no more. I became discouraged, and tried to do my best to work on the Maradan Chronicles skin, in a way that would be compatible with the new upcoming Oasis skin. Not to mention, I had outdone myself making the previous Monaco skin, and the Marapets Answers skin. I had already thought about adopting Marapedia in a couple of occasions but with all the changes that were occurring I forgot to keep checking in the bureaucrats/admins and whether they were active or not. I tried to get in contact with the last bureaucrat in Marapedia around February 2011, that's what it seemed. I was searching for the one who had "more than 5 edits", then later noticed that he/she had left a note briefly saying what their NEW username is. I then contacted him/her in the new user talk page and he/she left a message with just the word "Ok", and gave me rights of adminship/bureaucracy the same day. Yay!!! So now, why a merge? A merge to strengthen the community of Marapets enthusiasts, and rebuild it into what it was at one time here in Marapedia. A very frequented help site that was incomplete, and the Maradan Chronicles, a less likely to be frequented site, with quite a lot of articles. Both will be strong enough to form a well deserved notable place for Marapets users. All admins and users of a website (or wiki) have something in common, we want to share what we know with the world, and give as much detailed information about a subject (the one we happen to love). Rather than create something that will benefit us, we want to benefit everyone! Being an admin in a wiki, doesn't make a person better than the common user, and an admin who edit more than the other doesn't have "more power", nor seniority over the other; if that was so, there wouldn't have been an agreement on merging. We are here to revert vandal attacks, keep the wiki maintained and updated, and making the wiki as welcoming as possible to our visitors. 74 Articles In Marapedia, there are currently 74 articles and hoping to bring that up to roughly over 300, give or take because some articles already exist here. The Maradan Chronicles currently has 280, and it should add up to 354, but it wont due to, like I mentioned, there are articles here that we also have there. Maradan Chronicles or Marapedia? It will be Marapedia. Sadly the Maradan Chronicles name is too long for some people to remember it. The Maradan Chronicles will RIP soon enough, and what it used to be will become the new Marapedia. There are great plans for this wiki, hopefully it will involve dedicated users like you! :) ;--Liliana (my talk). Category:Blog posts